COVER of Science 22 May 2015: Various species of plankton. Using the research vessel Tara, the Tara Oceans expedition sampled plankton ecosystems around the world and collected associated oceanographic data. The wet part of the expedition was accompanied by an integrative analysis on land, incorporating DNA sequencing and bioinformatics, microscopic imaging, and network analysis. See pages 841, 865, 870, and 873. A large part of the scientific findings have been funded under the OCEANOMICS “Investing for the Future” French program (www.oceanomics.eu).
Photos: C. Sardet/CNRS/Tara Oceans/Plankton.

Chronicles/Plankton: Wonders of the Drifting World

The special issue reports on the detailed mapping of the planktonic biodiversity in the world's oceans by an international interdisciplinary team of scientists during the 2009 - 2013 expedition of the schooner TARA. The papers explore interactions among the various organisms and their environment in detail. The massive amount of material and data collected during this expedition will provide the scientific community at large with unprecedented resources, including a catalogue of several million new genes, which will transform how we study the oceans and assess climate change.

EMBRC provided facilities and infrastructure in support of this effort via its French and Italian nodes in CNRS-UPMC Station Biologique de Roscoff & Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche-sur-Mer and in the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn.

It is great to see marine biology on the cover of a high impact scientific journal and highlights the important role that marine biology can play in the life sciences. These are the first results from the TARA Oceans program, published in a prominent journal, and we are likely to see more exciting results as scientists drill further down into the collected material.

For further information please follow this link to the press package released by the French National Research Centre (CNRS): www2.cnrs.fr/sites/en/fichier/press_kit_online.pdf